


the body is rot waiting to happen

by tboi



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ambiguous Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 11:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20309077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tboi/pseuds/tboi
Summary: We don’t owe it to them, you think, and it’s both of you and all of you.





	the body is rot waiting to happen

**Author's Note:**

> dont think too hard ab the logistics of this fic i watched the 80 drk quest at 8am and then shat this out in fifteen minutes coz it killed me. no spoilers for the 80 quest but lines from the journal are referenced. not a fan of uploading stuff under 1k but at least im writing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as always let me know if anything is off
> 
> twitter @neroscaeva , title from shitty horoscopes

Visions of blood flitters beneath your eyes when you close them, deep and dark and red. You’ve always had trouble sleeping - nowadays, it feels near impossible.

_ It had to be this way, _ you think.  _ There was no other way it could have gone.  _ The shield cracked and there is flooring in the Vault that Lord Aymeric ordered replaced moons ago, because the blood had been scrubbed out, but you both knew it was still there. 

_ I suppose not, _ the thought that is both yours and isn’t says, snaking into your never quiet mind and making your aether thrum, dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. It is a thick black beneath your skin, now, weighs heavy like tar when it breaks free from your breast and spills forth from underneath your sharp tongue, over your teeth. You could choke on it. You could suffocate on it.

_ You can think that, _ the thought continues, finds purchase somehow somewhere in your mind, broken and scarred.  _ But the world is what we make it. Does anything have to be the way it is? _

What  _ have  _ you made it, you wonder. Eorzea seems to be intent on collapsing in on itself - the people cry out for a saviour, and you answer, time and time again. The people’s hopes weigh heavy -  _ too heavy, let me, let me -  _ and you feel further and further away from the Mother Crystal’s light and love every day. You don’t think it should have been bestowed upon you in the first place - it’s too much. The light within you has been all but smothered - your aether thrums most violently at your core, at your heart, and you and not you and  _ us, we _ , reach for your chest, desperate to hear your heart beating beneath.

_ As if it will ever stop, _ you think, miserable. You dream about dying and the prayers that envelop the realm bring you back time and time again. You dream about your body rotting more and more each time, jaw falling from your body. The people rob you of your rest and your body and your voice.

_ O save us, Warrior of Light,  _ generation after generation cry, their arms snaking their way up your legs, up your body, pulling you down. A young woman finds your unmarked grave and digs your bones up from the ground, prays for you to return and to  _ please, help her, like you used to help everyone- _

_ We don’t owe it to them,  _ you think, and it’s both of you and all of you.  _ We don’t have to do this. _ The ball and chain weighs heaviest when the key is held just out of reach, dangled over your head. 

_ I could,  _ you think.  _ I could go. _

_ But you can’t, can you? _ they say.  _ There are people here you deem worth protecting. _

The faces of your fellow Scions break through the sticky red, bright and hopeful. The realm will take and take and  _ take  _ from you, but if it helps those dearest to you - you dream about their broken bodies, sometimes, and those nightmares have you shaking worse than any others.

“You, too,” you say, voice hoarse from lack of use. You place your palm flat over your breast, focus on the hum below. Your aether reaches out to meet you, finds its way easily out of your body to envelop the hand you hold close to your chest. Black and heavy, but  _ yours, ours. _

_ If you insist,  _ and it’s a sigh in your head. 

This has not - will not be for nothing.  _ I love you more than you’ll ever know,  _ you think and say, and it’s all of you.


End file.
